What a great state Colorado can be as a practice base for an international medical graduate (IMG). You made a good choice when deciding to pursue a Colorado medical practice. Yet if, as an international medical graduate, you have ECFMG or USMLE issues, as is only too common, or you face Colorado Medical Board issues, those issues can completely derail your dreams for a Colorado medical career. Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team for the strategic and effective attorney representation you need to overcome your licensing issues. We are available in Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora, Fort Collins, Lakewood, Thornton, Arvada, Westminster, Pueblo, Greeley, Centennial, Boulder, Highlands Ranch, Longmont, and at every other location across the state. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form for your best possible Colorado IMG licensing issue resolution.
The Benefits of Colorado IMG Licensure
A U.S.-based medical practice can be among the most financially, professionally, and personally rewarding careers a professional can choose. Colorado's beautiful mountains, great cities and towns, fine educational systems, diverse culture and arts, and strong economy ensure substantial physician employment opportunities. Colorado also offers physicians the professional privileges of many large, well equipped, and well staffed hospitals like Presbyterian-St Luke's Medical Center, UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, Denver Health Medical Center, Rose Medical Center, UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central, Swedish Medical Center, SCL Health Saint Joseph Hospital, North Colorado Medical Center, Porter Adventist Hospital, and Parkview Medical Center. You may have had other good reasons to choose Colorado to seek licensure and establish your medical practice. Let us help you preserve your dream in the face of ECFMG, USMLE, or Colorado Medical Board issues.
The Impact of Colorado IMG Licensing Issues
So, you have a sterling ambition in seeking to practice medicine in the great state of Colorado. And you've invested a tremendous amount in your international medical education, not only in tuition but also in forgone earnings, time, trouble, and sheer effort. The thing to keep in mind when facing ECFMG, USMLE, or Colorado Medical Board issues is that those issues place your dream and your investment at risk of loss. You could lose it all to your pending issues if those issues cause significant delay and then result in denial of your Colorado medical licensure. If you fail to gain a Colorado license, you may have to report your license denial to medical boards in other states to which you apply. You may be unable to gain a U.S. state medical board license. The professional and personal impact must be hard to imagine, having to start over in a different field and career, likely with substantial medical education debt yet to repay. Don't let the risks freeze you like the proverbial deer in the headlights. Instead, get our highly qualified representation so that we can promptly go to work strategically addressing your Colorado IMG licensing issues.
Colorado IMG Licensing Requirements
Your licensing fate as a Colorado-based international medical graduate depends on three organizations, not just one or two organizations. You must meet the requirements not only of the Colorado Medical Board but also of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) and the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). Each plays a different role. The ECFMG evaluates and certifies your international medical education, the USMLE examines your medical knowledge and skills, and with those two approvals, the Colorado Medical Board focuses primarily on your good moral character. Consider the following summary of those requirements and the procedures each organization follows. We can help you address issues with any of the three organizations' requirements.
Colorado Medical Board IMG Licensing Requirements
The Colorado Medical Practice Act regulates your licensure and medical practice in the state. Section 12-240-107 of the Colorado Medical Practice Act requires all persons desiring to practice medicine within Colorado to obtain a Colorado Medical Board license. The Act's Section 12-240-110 states the general licensure requirements, including completing a medical degree from an approved school, passing an approved exam, and completing one year of a medical residency. The Colorado Medical Board's Rule 1.5 further requires an international medical graduate to complete ECFMG certification and pass the USMLE Step 3 exam for which ECFMG certification qualifies the IMG, although the FLEX exam or a state written exam may be alternatives. Colorado Medical Board rules and statutes do not explicitly identify good moral character as one of those general or specific requirements for licensure. But other provisions for discipline of Colorado physicians on grounds of criminal conviction, incompetence, intemperance, impairment, or other character and fitness issues suggest that the Colorado Medical Board will reject IMGs with those character issues.
ECFMG Requirements for Colorado IMGs
You've just seen that the Colorado Medical Board's Rule 1.5 requires international medical graduates to obtain ECFMG certification. ECFMG certification ensures that you graduated from an international medical school the ECFMG recognizes as meeting the requirements for qualifying for the USMLE Step 3 exam and subsequent U.S. state medical licensure in those states, like Colorado, requiring ECFMG certification. The ECFMG's approved international medical schools appear in its World Directory of Medical Schools.
To prove your approved school graduation, you must build an online portfolio in ECFMG's Electronic Portfolio of International Credentials (EPIC) portal. EPIC requires you to induce your international medical school to supply an authenticated transcript showing your graduation. EPIC also requires other documentation of your ability to enter the U.S. lawfully for residency, licensure, and practice. That documentation may be your U.S. passport or birth certificate or an immigrant visa gained with ECFMG assistance. ECFMG's other requirements include that your statements, representations, and submissions be true, accurate, complete, and not altered or misleading. Let us help you address ECFMG documentation, authentication, approved school, and graduation issues.
USMLE Requirements for Colorado IMGs
You've seen above that Colorado Medical Board Rule 1.5 requires international medical graduates to pass the USMLE Step 3 exam or an equivalent approved exam. ECFMG certification qualifies you for the USMLE Step 3 exam. However, you must still apply to the USMLE to schedule your Step 3 exam. Your application must be accurate and complete, containing no false or misleading statements, while showing your ECFMG certification as qualified and prepared for the exam.
Once you qualify for the USMLE, the USMLE Bulletin of Information contains the rules governing your study, exam administration, and conduct following the exam. You must not solicit or use confidential exam questions in your preparation, share confidential exam questions after your exam, or use unauthorized materials or devices during the exam. Other forms of cheating, such as using an impostor to take the exam or getting answers from other examinees during the exam, also violate USMLE requirements. Your exam answers must also not show an anomalous pattern indicating an irregularity in your preparation or exam administration. Let us help you with any USMLE issues.
Colorado IMG Problems and Pitfalls
The above discussion of ECFMG, USMLE, and Colorado State Board of Medicine requirements already suggests some of the licensing problems and pitfalls that international medical graduates face, generally far more than the issues with which domestic U.S. medical graduates must deal. Your precarious position is understandable and, unfortunately, common among IMGs. Here is an outline of IMG licensing issues with each of these three organizations and how we can help you face and overcome those issues.
Colorado Medical Board IMG Issues
Your goal is Colorado Medical Board licensure. To get there, you may first have to resolve ECFMG and USMLE issues, addressed below. If ECFMG or USMLE issues are holding up your Colorado Medical Board license application, we can communicate with Board officials to ensure that they understand that you are diligently addressing those issues with our assistance so that those Board officials keep your application file open. If you resolve those ECFMG and USMLE issues, we can help you prove their favorable resolution to the Colorado Medical Board so that Board officials approve your license application. We can, in other words, help you resolve ECFMG and USMLE documentation issues with the Colorado Medical Board.
The issues you face with the Colorado Medical Board directly are likely to have to do with the good moral character requirement implied in Board disciplinary authority. If you have criminal convictions, we may be able to show that they are not disqualifying, had a court reverse them, or are sufficiently old as to indicate your rehabilitation. If you had substance abuse dependency or addiction, we may be able to show your reliable recovery. If you had domestic violence restraining orders, we may be able to show that they were unnecessary and promptly resolved without endangering incidents. Whatever your character issue, our attorneys can make a case for Board presentation that they do not suggest your bad character. Alternatively, you may face issues showing the Board that you have completed the specific child abuse, sexual violence, or other training the Board requires. We can help you obtain and supply the appropriate documentation. We know the Board's protective procedures to invoke to make these presentations and the evidence to supply at conferences and hearings.
Colorado IMG ECFMG Issues
While Colorado Medical Board issues may tend to have to do with proving the soundness of your personal behavior or professional conduct, ECFMG issues instead often arise out of documentation and authentication issues. Because ECFMG is a certifying organization rather than focused directly on public protection, like the Colorado Medical Board, ECFMG will scrutinize documentation of your international medical school, your graduation transcript, your citizenship or lawful immigration status, and other certifying information. If ECFMG finds inconsistencies between documents or between your assertions and the documentation you supply, you may face charges for that attempt. The ECFMG's Policies and Procedures on Irregular Behavior make such subversion a ground to deny certification. Alternatively, your documentation may be consistent and accurate but may not have the seal, signature, attestation, or other indicators of reliability the ECFMG requires or may have arrived from the wrong recordkeeper, by the wrong method, or in copy rather than original form. Our attorneys know how to get proper authenticated records, even from international medical school officials. Let us help you resolve your ECFMG issues.
Colorado IMG USMLE Issues
Passing the USMLE Step 3 exam is your greatest USMLE challenge. But you may have studied diligently and effectively so that you are confident in your exam success. Or you may even have already taken the exam and earned a passing score but cannot obtain USMLE release and validation of your score. In that instance, our attorneys can help you learn from the USMLE investigation and irregular behavior procedures what USMLE alleges you did wrong and then help you rebut those allegations with exonerating explanations supported by reliable evidence. Your issue may be proctor, test center staff, or fellow examinee claims that you used unauthorized materials or devices, tried to get answers from others, or engaged in a similar form of cheating. Your issue may instead be an extenuating circumstance like illness or injury that kept you from attending a scheduled exam, so that USMLE should not count it against your retake limit. Or your issue may be allegations that you misused confidential exam questions. In any case, we can help you meet with USMLE investigators with the proper information to head off formal charges or represent you at the formal irregular behavior hearing.
Procedural Protections for Colorado IMGs
Colorado Statutes Section 12-240-125 authorizes the Colorado Medical Board to give notice and hold formal hearings in disputes with physicians over their character, conduct, and fitness to hold a license. That statute and other authority recognizes the Board's obligation to provide you with due process protective procedures that we can invoke to address and resolve your Board issues. The ECFMG's Policies and Procedures on Irregular Behavior, which the USMLE also follows, similarly authorize a Credentials Committee to hold hearings and a Review Committee to accept appeals of adverse decisions. We can help you invoke those protective procedures.
Colorado IMG Licensing Representation
The Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team is available to represent you across Colorado and around the nation to help you resolve your ECFMG, USMLE, and Colorado Medical Board issues. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now.
